Gross family documents

Identity Statement

Reference code(s)	: GB 1556 WL 1183
Held at	: Wiener Library   Click here to find out how to view this collection at http://www.wienerlibrary.co.uk/ ›
Full title	: Gross family documents
Date(s)	: 1938-1945
Level of description	: collection
Extent	: 1 file
Name of creator(s)	: Gross family

Context

Administrative/Biographical history:

Wilhelm and Getrud Gross were typical middle class Germans living in Breslau (now Wroclaw, Poland). Wilhelm was a Professor of Engineering and Gertrud was the daughter of wealthy industrialists. Her uncle, Karl Gross, had a substantial collection of art works and antiquities, which were confiscated and many of which are probably currently in museums in Eastern Europe. They were of Jewish ethnic origin, but were not religious and they integrated their children totally into German culture.

They had 3 children: Dorothea; an elder brother, Karl; and a younger brother Klaus. Wilhelm was one of 6 siblings. His sister, Emilie, married into the Kuppenheim family.

It appears from the correspondence that Wilhelm was incarcerated in Buchenwald shortly after Kristallnacht and released 5 weeks later on the proviso that he and his family leave Germany immediately. The grandparents fled to Holland in 1939 whence they were later deported and perished in the Holocaust. The three children came to Great Britain.

Content

Scope and content/abstract:

Papers of the Gross family, 1938-1945, documenting the experiences of an assimilated German Jewish family, some of whom managed to escape to safety and others who perished in the Holocaust. Comprising original correspondence between members of the family and friends before, during and after World War Two; personal papers such as certificates and photographs.

Access & Use

Language/scripts of material:
German and English

System of arrangement:

Chronological by document type

Conditions governing access:

Open

Conditions governing reproduction:

Copies can be made for personal use. Permission must be sought for publication.

Finding aids:

Description exists to this archive on the Wiener Library's online catalogue www.wienerlibrary.co.uk

Archival Information

Archival history:

Immediate source of acquisition:

Sybil Sharpe

Allied Materials

Related material:

Publication note:

Description Notes

Archivist's note:
Entry compiled by Howard Falksohn.

Rules or conventions:
Compiled in compliance with General International Standard Archival Description, ISAD(G), second edition, 2000; National Council on Archives Rules for the Construction of Personal, Place and Corporate Names, 1997.

Date(s) of descriptions:
January 2008